FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 
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CHAPTER I. 
GENERAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY, 
M. Du CHALLU, in his volume entitled The Land of the 
Midnight Sun, writes :—‘ There is a beautiful country far 
away towards the icy north. It is a glorious land; with 
snowy, bold, and magnificent mountains; deep, narrow, 
and well-wooded valleys; bleak plateaux and slopes; wild 
ravines; clear and picturesque lakes; immense forests of 
birch, pine, and fir trees, the solitude of which seems to 
soothe the restless spirit of man ; large and superb glaciers, 
unrivalled elsewhere in Europe for size; arms of the sea, 
called fjords, of extreme beauty, reaching far inland in the 
midst of grand scenery ; numberless rivulets, whose crystal 
waters vary in shade and colour as the rays of the sun 
strike upon them on their journey towards the ocean, 
tumbling in countless cascades and rapids, filling the air 
with the music of their fall; rivers and streams which, in 
their hurried course from the heights above to the chasm 
below, plunge in grand waterfalls, so beautiful, white, and 
chaste, that the beholder never tires of looking at them; 
they appear like an enchanting vision before him, in the 
reality of which he can hardly believe. Contrasted with 
these are immense areas of desolate and barren land and 
rocks, often covered with boulders which in many places 
are piled here and there in thick masses, and swamps and 
moorlands, all so dreary, that they impress the stranger 
with a feeling of loneliness from which he tries in vain to 
escape. There are also many exquisite sylvan landscapes, 
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